Julia is happy with her place in
the shifter community as the owner of the famous shifter bar, The Backwater.
But the life she's created for herself isn't enough to satisfy her crazy-ass
mother, Lucinda, who shops her and her sister, Krystal, around to the pure
blood shifters like pieces of meat. Only a born shifter mate is good enough for
her girls.

Thomas James has his hands full as
the shifter king's head of security. He certainly wasn’t looking for a
girlfriend during the first annual shifter gathering. He had the king and queen
to protect, not skirts to chase.

A childhood of emotional and
physical abuse by his birth father has left Thomas emotionally unavailable and
uninterested in romantic relationships. His father Tim’s cruelty to his mother
and brother molded him into an extremely protective person. No one messes with
his loved ones without answering to him.

Even though Julia and Thomas are
destined to be mates, the obstacles standing between them and their
happily-ever-after seem insurmountable.

Lucinda insists Julia stay away
from the filthy human.

Tim is trying to kill every one
Thomas loves. The mysterious Benevolent Sovereign, who is trying to overthrow
the throne, has sent swampers to attack Thomas and destroy Julia’s livelihood.

With family like theirs, who needs
enemies? Will Julia and Thomas’s happiness be snuffed out before it has a
chance to begin or will they forge through - obstacles be damned.

Only the birds singing and the
leaves ruffling in the breeze shared Emma’s solitude. Reverently, she knelt
before the dais constructed for John’s conversion. As part of its preparation,
she had taken her daily meditation time at its base.

Closing her eyes and lifting her hands in
supplication, she began to pray. “Mother Luperca, I ask that you bless this
holy site and give it your approval.”

As she knelt
quietly, a soft voice greeted her, “Beloved daughter, I give this site my
approval. All is prepared for my newest son, John, to join my family.”

“May I also
inquire about my unmated sons?”

“You ask about
your sons, but that is not what I feel in your heart. Your true concern is for
Thomas, and the plan I have for him.”

“If it pleases
you, may I be honored with the knowledge of your plan?”

Emma completed her
prayers and final preparations, excited to tell Isaac her news.

*****

Isaac sat in his
office responding to emails from the other pack patriarchs. The gathering was
shaping up to be a complete success with every family in the region attending.

“Isaac! Isaac,
where are you, cher?” Emma called through the house.

“In here, mon
amour.”

“I can’t believe
it!” Emma perched in the chair opposite him. “The Goddess has given me the next
mate.”

“Who?” he asked
excitedly. “Lucas? Marcus?”

Emma leaned toward
him and whispered her incredible secret. “Thomas.”

“No! How?”

“Julia.” Emma
clapped excitedly. “She’s his mate.”

“I never saw that
coming.” Isaac laughed.

“That’s why he
isn’t being converted with John.”

Isaac nodded.
“He’ll be converted by Julia during the ritual.”

“The Goddess told
me Julia will attend the gathering, and our job is to ensure they meet.”

“All right,” Isaac
grinned, “that should be easy enough. I’ll keep tabs on Thomas, and you watch
Julia. If they don’t meet on their own, one of us will make sure they are
introduced.”

Excerpt:

“Hello?” Julia Le Beau yawned
into the phone.

Her alarm never had the
chance to go off, because her mother, Lucinda, beat it by a good thirty
minutes. She was convinced the woman could hear her biological clock ticking,
which was ridiculous since she had another six hundred years for children. No
matter what Julia said, it didn’t seem to penetrate her mother’s ears, so, here
she was, having the same conversation again.

“Julia, are you still in bed?
Did you forget I’m bringing another family to your house this morning?”

“I thought I told you not to
bring them. I’m finished with your parades, Mother.”

“For Goddess sake, get
showered immediately. We’ll be at your door in one hour.”

“I’m not going to answer the
door, so don’t bother.”

Her mother ignored her as
usual and exactly one hour later was at her door.

The last time Julia locked
the door and ignored her mother’s knocking, it resulted in a very ugly scene.
Lucinda in the throws of an angry tirade was not a pretty sight. Her face
turned a mottled shade of red, and she broke the door down, dragging the
shocked men in behind her.

Since that day, she'd
grudgingly opened the door. If not for her house’s sake, then for the sake of
the men, she could at least spare them the humiliation of the tantrum sure to
happen.

Two hours later, Julia’s
stomach churned. She loathed the questions that came after each ‘visit’.
Couldn’t her mother forget to ask, just once?

“Well?” her mother asked
impatiently from the doorway.

“Nothing,” Julia mumbled, not
bothering to look up from the romance novel she was reading. “I had no
attraction. No, scent. No, telepathy.” She didn’t even bother to say she was
sorry this time because she wasn’t.

Lucinda snarled in
frustration as she came fully into the room.

“I met all the men you just
paraded through my house and had none of the mating signs. I don’t know what
more you expect from me.” She sighed wearily.

“I expect you to accept one.”

Julia’s chin fell to her
chest as a heavy sigh escaped. “You know as well as I do, it doesn’t work that
way.”

“I’m sure if you made the
extra effort to at least date them, something would shake loose. How hard can
it be? Just look at Cade and that human, Anna, they met in a bar in the French
Quarter of all places. Not to mention, Simon and his mate Rose, yet another
human to dilute the royal gene pool. Rose showed up at Cade’s house after she lost
her job in Denver, and now the family is stuck with her. And I heard a rumor
that Stefan has found his mate, and you guessed it, a human. He bought her at
the auction Simon had a couple months ago. I can’t believe Isaac can still hold
his head up in public with his sons mating lowlife humans. My daughters will
mate pureblood shifters and maintain the integrity of the bloodline.”

Julia wanted to scream. A
mating didn’t just ‘shake loose’, and there was nothing wrong with humans.
Heck, most mates were human. There was no reasoning with her mother anymore.
That ability had left the building along with Elvis years ago. She wasn’t sure
if the animal part of her mother was taking over and acting erratic or if the
human side was slipping into insanity.

Her mother leaned forward
forcing Julia to sit back. “For years, you have rejected the males I bring to
you. It’s time you made a—”

“Mother, I know you want your
children mated, but no matter how badly you want it, you can’t force it.”

“Just watch me,” Lucinda spat.
“We are in line to gain the throne. The lineage must be continued and ready at
all times.”

It was true the family needed
to continue, but mates and children came into a shifter’s life when the Goddess
deemed it was the right time. The last thing you wanted to do was push the
Goddess or try to circumvent her plan. Thinking that way was suicide.

Lucinda turned on her heel
toward the door and then paused. “There will be a group of available males here
Friday. This pack is out of Arizona. Pray one of them is acceptable to you.”

Once Lucinda was in her boat
and headed out of her private bay, Julia finally breathed easy again. Krystal
would be home in a few hours and available to talk. They needed a plan; somehow
they needed to find a way to approach Father about Mother’s behavior. The
problem was her father, Charles, was completely blind to her mother’s oddities.

Julia turned the page of her
book and settled deeper into her favorite easy chair; there was nothing she
could do until Krystal got home. Tonight she would suggest again they bring
Logan and Quintin into the conversation. It was about time the boys knew what
was going on behind the family’s back. Thinking it through, she shook her head.
She wouldn’t bother the twins, Rémi, and René, just yet. They were too young to
be drawn into this.

Once Lucinda got a notion in
her head, she had a tendency to twist it until it fit her needs and desires.
After that, she could never be swayed.

And her mother’s drive to
force both Krystal and Julia to find mates had reached critical mass.

“What are we going to do?”
Julia whispered to herself.

Two weeks later

Morning was Julia’s favorite
time of day. The bar wasn’t open yet, and she had it all to herself as she
wiped down tables and checked the bar stock.

The only problem was; it
sometimes gave her too much time to think. Today was one of those times. She
had her mother on her mind.

It wasn’t that her mother
didn’t love her—she did. At least, she was pretty sure she did. But the woman
had some pretty extreme ideas of late. She apparently believed shifters should
only mate other born shifters, and humans were a scourge and diluted the
bloodline.

In her disturbed mind, she
believed if she dragged her daughters around to enough eligible shifter males,
she could somehow force a pureblood mating.

Julia and Krystal were tired
of being paraded before one shifter family after another. Tired of letting
hundreds of males sniff them in the hopes of finding a mate. It was straight up
embarrassing.

As much as she loved the bayou, she was seriously considering
tagging along with Krystal to Lucas’s ranch in Texas. She heaved a sigh and
took a good, long look at the bar. All right, she would do it. If her mother
tried to drag her out ‘visiting’ one more time, she’d pack up and head for
Texas.

Prior to becoming a full time
writer, she was publicist to the authors, owning ARC Author & Reader
Conventions. Still is.

Her idea of absolute heaven is a
day in the French Quarter with her computer, her coffee mug and the Brothers,
of course.

A Midwest native with her heart
lost to Louisiana, she has a penchant for titillating tales featuring sexy men
and strong women. When she's not writing, she's probably taking in a movie,
reading, or traveling.